Mashpee tribe rallies supporters for Capitol Hill march

By Tanner Stening

Thursday

Nov 15, 2018 at 10:21 AMNov 15, 2018 at 7:59 PM

Congressmen William Keating, Joseph Kennedy lend support at rally

WASHINGTON D.C. — A year after President Donald Trump proclaimed his commitment to tribal sovereignty and self-determination, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe marched up Capitol Hill with hundreds of supporters Wednesday, decrying a recent administration decision that could dismantle its reservation and ability to self-govern.

“This is an existential threat,” U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., told the crowd of several hundred gathered in front of the Capitol after they had marched from the National Museum of the American Indian a short distance away.

The tribe could be the first to lose sovereign status and the benefits that come with it -- after two dozen opponents of a proposed resort casino in Taunton in 2016 prevailed in a legal challenge of a U.S. Department of Interior 2015 decision placing 321 acres of land in Mashpee and Taunton into trust as reservation land for the tribe.

Hundreds of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe members arriving by the busload early Wednesday morning joined leaders from across Indian Country to take part in the “sovereignty walk and rally,” a demonstration that sought to highlight the threat facing the tribe, and others like it, after a Sept. 7 decision by the Interior Department upended a previous decision that had effectively created the tribe’s reservation.

In its September decision, the agency ceded to a ruling in the federal lawsuit brought by neighbors of the proposed Taunton casino project.

Judge William Young ruled in 2016 that the Secretary of the Interior did not have the authority to take the land into trust because the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction at the time of the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, disqualifying it under a definition of Indian used by Interior officials.

The lawsuit, as in similar cases, rested on the interpretation of four words: “now under federal jurisdiction,” a phrase that has vexed tribes seeking trust status for newly acquired land with the federal government over the years — most notably the Narragansett Tribe’s efforts in Rhode Island — culminating in the Supreme Court decision known as Carcieri v. Salazar.

Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney, an Alaska Native, wrote in a letter to Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Chairman Cedric Cromwell that, after reviewing the evidence and submissions, the agency found no indication of federal authority sufficient to prove the tribe was “under federal jurisdiction.”

The decision could soon mean trouble for other tribes that received federal recognition after 1934, according to Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Vice Chairwoman Jessie “Little Doe” Baird.

The federal government is going to come for the other 127 tribes on that list “if we don’t put a stop to this today,” Baird told the crowd on the west side of the Capitol.

Hopes for the future of the tribe’s land rest with legislation pending before Congress that would reaffirm the reservation outright, ending the ongoing litigation and preventing future legal challenges to it in court.

Keating, who introduced the bill in the House, said the tribe’s sovereign bond with the state and federal government was “so strong” historically that it created difficulties for the court in determining whether the tribe even existed independently.

“We shouldn’t have to be doing this,” Keating said.

A twin bill has been introduced in the Senate.

Indian Country underestimated the effect of the 2009 Carceri decision, said Lance Gumbs, senior trustee of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and regional vice president of the National Congress of American Indians.

“If this can happen to one tribe, it can happen to any,” he said. “This is a trickle-down effect.”

It is a crucial time in Indian history, Gumbs said.

He singled out Sweeney, saying she took office without fully recognizing the importance of a tribe’s holding land.

Demonstrators responding to the tribe’s call for support — Indian and non-Indian alike — came from across the country.

Robert Noonan, of Florida, said he traveled 16 hours to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Cape natives.

“It was a call for all other tribes and all Americans to support them at this rally, and that’s why I’m here,” he said.

In 1620, the Mashpee Wampanoag’s ancestors demonstrated “regard, respect and humanity to the strangers” who arrived from afar, said Mohegan Indian Tribal Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, referencing the arrival of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.

“If not for the Wampanoag, strangers would have suffered an ill fate ... the story of America would likely be far different than the one we understand today,” she said.

Wednesday’s rally comes as the Democrats gained more than 30 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives during last week’s midterm election, giving the party control of the body and potentially upping the bill’s chances of success.

“We will continue to stand by your side to ensure that in this Congress or the next one ... we will pass this bill,” U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, D-Mass., said during a speech in front of the Capitol.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “There are Republicans who support us, but there are also Republicans who will decide whether this bill comes to the floor, whether the United States government has the opportunity — and seizes it — to say that we can make those wrongs a little bit right.”

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